Boss VE-500

Sound Quality

The sound quality on the unit my wife bought seems good, can't say for the one I bought, due to lack of support it must be returned.

Reliability/Durability

This is where the problem lies. The driver install for the unit crashed my MacBook Pro. Upon doing the required reboot the computer hung at the Apple logo screen and would no longer boot up. Pleas for help on the internet met with crickets and the Boss support experience is perhaps the worst I've had to date and I'll share that verbatim.Me: I installed the ve500_macd_v100 driver package on my MacBook Pro running OSX 10.13.6 and the computer will no longer boot up. I was able to boot to a backup drive connected on USB but because the computer is running from that drive the un-install program tells me the driver is not installed. I need to know what the driver installs, ads or modifies so I can remove it manually please.Them: Hi Greg,We haven't heard of any other Mac 10.13 High Sierra or 10.14 Mojave users having any issues with the VE-500 Driver.You may want to contact Apple Support for help trouble shooting your computer issues.All the contents of the driver is in the download.Me: Thanks for the response, please the files names and locations where I can remove the driver. This is important to me thanks!Them: Hi Greg,Unfortunately we work from WINDOWS 10 PC computers and are not able to view the downloaded driver files for Mac for reference.Kind regards,Roland Product Support

Price/Value

The value of a unit is only as good as the support team that backs it up. If support is non-existent on the front end, imagine what you'll get after a few months!

General Comments

The big takeaway here appears to be that if you're using a Boss product with a Mac, you're on your own. I'm certain that for most people the driver install goes fine and they don't need any additional assistance. Why did I have a problem? Hard to say but I've run a lot of other music gear with this computer and drivers have previously been installed for MOTU interface units, Line 6 gear, the Roland FA-08 and perhaps some other things although I didn't have anything else attached at the time I had this problem. I would imagine there's some sort of resource conflict but who knows? Apparently no one.

Reviewer's Background

I've done home recording on Macs and PC's dating back to the early 90's. I've used dozens of interfaces and other processors over the years in that pursuit. I've also performed in bands dating back to the early 80's and in the 2000's began using computers, interfaces and MIDI extensively in live performance as well. Professionally I've been an electronic tech at a large avionics company for over 28 years.